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Monday, March 16, 2009

Monday, March 16, 2009

As usual when a nugget of cake news hits the blogosphere, I've been inundated with e-mails about this photo. In it, nattily-dressed Neil presents his resignation on a large sheet cake.

Neil is obviously a great guy, and not just because he can rock a fuchsia dress shirt. No, he also sweetened his two-weeks notice with words like "joy and whim" in addition to all that yummy frosting. I bet every boss wishes their employees would be as thoughtful.

However, I submit that this cake is far too well-intentioned to qualify as a Cake Wreck. So for the rest of us - the ones who have daydreamed (or continue to) about telling the ol' boss-person where they can take our respective employment position and place it - I present Patrick's cake:

Obviously, Patrick was not as well-disposed towards his job at a "prestigious interactive agency"*. In fact, he was so fed-up with his boss's brow-beatings that on the day in question he picked up his paycheck, placed this cake on his desk, and simply walked out the door.

Here's what happened next:

"About two hours later, my voice mail, text, and email lit up like wildfire. Other agencies that I've never heard of are contacting me telling me I'm a legend. People are photographing each other with the cake."

Wow. See, now there's a way to go out with a sweet, passive-aggressive bang.

And the boss? Apparently he didn't realize this was an insult. HR had to tell him it was a few weeks later. (Not sure what he thought it was before that - a joke, perhaps?)

Patrick tells me that folks in his industry still ask, "Are YOU the one who left the cake?". So maybe you should put this on your resume, eh, Patrick? And then put that on a cake. And then send it to me. And then I will eat it. (Mmm, cakey resumes...)

It's precisely the anti-Donald-Trump cake. I belive the resignation cake must have taken some thought, and that maybe the "I Quit" cake was an afterthought while he was getting donuts at his local bakery.

Still, both are quite entertaining and I belive both qualify as cake wrecks.

That first picture of "Neil" has to be Photoshopped. Either that or his knuckles drag on the ground. Is it me or are his arms not proportional to the rest of his body? Maybe angle but it looks pretty straight-on to me.

Congratulations! Just heard on another blog you won the best new blog category at the bloggie awards. Now can you please tell us what the first resignation letter cake says We can't see it close enough but want to so bad!!

Most likely "prestigious interactive agency" = "cut-rate web design mill", complete with 60 hour weeks and the constant pressure of having your job outsourced to an "emerging economy". The pay is usually cut-rate too.

At my last job, I wasn't so creative. In fact, I hadn't intended on notifying the boss just yet, but when they tried to contact me from the office phone, I had just walked through the door at that moment with my "work" ringtone - Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job And Shove It." For the next week (had a new job lined up and couldn't give a whole 2 week notice), they walked on eggshells around me.

In hindsight, had I thought to go the cake route, I probably would have been more aggressive than passive and shoved it in said boss' face.

It would've been a nice touch if the cake had been signed by the ex-employee, don't you think? I mean, what's to stop all kinds (!) of questions as to who really meant to quit: Was it the one who set it down in front of the boss, or was that person just delivering it for someone else? What if someone ate the "QUIT" part (quickly to make the whole thing a mystery), and the boss hadn't seen it yet, and was left with just an "I" cake. THAT would be really weird. Especially with the two bug-eyed-looking roses staring out at whoever.So it's probably not even official.Ah, well; at least he's outta that rotten place. I don't know how he lasted as long as he did.

These remind me of the cake my boss and coworkers made me when I left to go to college. My boss would jokingly fire people all summer (you're fired, canned, pink-slipped, just come back tomorrow am), and they made me a pink sheet cake that said "You're FIRED!"

I must disagree here. Neil's cake is a wreck if there ever was one just for the sheer magnitude and effort he put into composing a lengthty resignation notice and the fact that he committed it to something edible and time-consuming. Furthermore, the entire act (and the tedd-bear-friendly look on his face in the photo) smack of something so "please don't be mad at me"-icky-sweet, it nauseates me.

I'm the guy who swears the management to secrecy every time I give my notice just so I won't get a cakey send-off. It's a freakin' job. Celebrating a resignation with a cake is equivalent to the potty-training cakes.

"Prestigious interactive agency" means "We're going to tell you that you are fabulously lucky to be working here in such a fabulous prestigious place. And it will look good on your resume. And we're going to pay you peanuts and suck the life force from you with long hours and no recognition." The end.

Did I miss it, or does no one thing the I Quit cake look like eyes. He must've been so stressed out at his job that his eyes looked like that. I can picture the cartoon crazy eyes! That's awesome! So is the first one! I would so love to eat the resignation cake.

If I were an employer and had gotten such a sweet resignation cake from a cutie like Neil (who BTW, had the decency to also put his resignation on plain ol' filing-friendly paper), I would be devastated.

Ah well... to each their own, I s'pose.

WV: clide. To verbally scold. All those people who can't see the awesomeness of these resignation cakes should definitely be clided.

About Neil's cake and the negativity: He liked his job and he's going to miss it! It's sweet. I'd make a cake for my last day at my job... maybe not a fancy resignation letter but a cake nonetheless. And seriously-- any excuse for a cake. And, no, Beckster, you're not the only one who thought the second cake's flowers were eyes. Seriously, it's ok to read other people's opinions.

During the past three years, my tenure at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been nothing short of pure excitement, joy and whim.

However, I have decided to spend more time with my family and attend to health issues that have recently arisen. I am proud to have been part of such an outstanding team and I wish this organization only the finest in future endeavors.

Please accept this cake as notification that I am leaving my position with NWT on March 27.

I think the boss would have been quicker to realize it was an insult if he'd done the 3 Stooges thing with the cake. Of course, if his boss was that dumb, that's probably why he quit in the first place.

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